Whiskey Lullaby
by What Doesn't Kill Ya
Summary: He was far too broken, and she never did get to truly tell him how much she loved him untill it was far too late for him to hear.


Warning: Character death, suicide, alcohol, I don't own the song _Whiskey Lullaby, _or _FFVII._

_She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette_

She wanted to wait until he was more… Stable she told him.

He knew that would never happen. At least, not in this life time.

There were far too many scars on his body, heart, and soul for that in his opinion.

He thought she knew that too.

_She broke his heart, he spent his whole life tryin' to forget  
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time  
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind_

He spent the next years either traveling as far away from her as possible, or sitting in front of a bar, with a bottle of whiskey.

The mako fire life running through his veins didn't help his goal.

The scars from the labs, the puppetry, the trauma of seeing his best friend die in front of his just awake eyes, of her dying just an arm's reach away, eventually faded away.

But never her rejection, the way he saw it in his mind at least. That never faded away.

Most of the time, at the end, it wasn't her bar, so they didn't know until it was too late. __

Until' the night

There was nothing special about that day.

Except that he just gave up.__

He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger

It was an old model.

It was also one of the only things to survive that terrible fire.

_And finally drank away her memory_

He lost himself in the lifestream.

His guardians pulled him out of the main stream.

But he was already asleep, already too far gone.

_Life is short but this time it was bigger_

He had already figured out that he would live forever if he wanted to.

Except, he didn't.

Not without her.

Which she couldn't.

_Than the strength he had to get up off his knees_

For all that mako, it was useless in the end.

_We found him with his face down in the pillow_

He was found by her, in the Church, next to the pool of the Cetra's life giving water.

_With a note that said, "I'll love her till I die"_

The note was the hammer that finally broke her heart.

_And when we buried him beneath the willow_

Over the years, a willow had grown around the Buster sword on the cliff, its ribbon weaving in the wind.

With some golden flowers around it.

No one alive knew how they got there.

But they were the only green thing alive within 50 miles of Midgar.

_The Angels sang a whiskey lullaby_

From the lifestream, two guardians cried for a life ended far too early, that could not even in death ever truly rest.__

La la la la la la la, la la la la la la laa  
La la la la la la la, la la la la la la laa  


_The rumors flew but nobody knew how much she blamed herself_

The one who saved the world died, and with that note, she didn't stop hearing those comments said under breath for a long time.

_For years and years, she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath_

She owned her own bar, so it wasn't too hard to hide it.

She didn't try too much, though.

_She finally drank her pain away a little at a time_

The scars on her heart faded away, from watching the puppetry, her entire town burn before her, of the Masamune going through the Cetra, finally faded away.

But he never did.

_But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind_

She had been a bartender for so long now, the whiskey couldn't do its magic quite so well as it could for other people who had lost everything because of Meteor.

He was never far off in her thoughts, because everywhere reminded her of him, for they had seen every bit of the world together, all those years ago.

She could never run away, only forwards towards him.

_Until' the night_

Last time around, it was a nothing night.

This time around, it was ten years.__

She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger

She had found that old model.

They had hid it from her, and she found it under the pinball machine.

She thought it ironic that it of all things had survived that horrible fire.

_And finally drank away his memory_

This time around, the guardians were ready, and got her out right away.

When she saw him sleeping in the lifestream, she wept.

The guardians cried with her.

_Life is short but this time it was bigger_

She was of a good age, she had thought.

She had lived long enough with this heartbreak.

_Than the strength she had to get up off her knees_

Those years of fighting could do little in the face of death.

_We found her with her face down in the pillow_

This time, it was the gunman who found her, in her bedroom on top of the bar, her children long grown up and away.

_Clinging to his picture for dear life_

It was a picture of him after geostigma, in the pool of life giving water with all those kids, and he was _**smiling**_ _**in it**_.

_We laid her next to him beneath the willow_

The patch of flowers beneath the willow had grown larger, as had the willow itself.

_While the Angels sang a whiskey lullaby_

Even though it wasn't raining, like it had so long ago, there were three pools of water beneath the willow that day, and forever more.__

La la la la la la la, la la la la la la laa  
La la la la la la la, la la la la la la laa

The willow and the golden flowers were the center, for the greenery that would spiral out from them in the next several hundred years.

_La la la la la la la, la la la la la la laa  
La la la la la la la, la la la la la la laa_


End file.
